Stet

We find ourselves in a Russia that is more a state of mind than a place. A composite, the area of our psyche that we have assembled to signify "Russia" based on what facts, images or tidbits we may have been able to gather concerning this nation through it's literature, culture, history, people, songs, paintings, photographs. Yes, ...vodka, cold, waiting, a broken violin. It's what exists within us of a place we've never been to, all preconceptions still intact, all inhabitants actions assuringly predictable. But Chapman plays with our Russia, tweaking it only slightly at times but at other times absurdly distorting it. How little we really understand, how great is the distance, how laughable our expectations, in ways reminiscent of Kafka's Amerika.In this collaged world we're introduced to a man who is equally a collage. Stet the filmmaker is an amalgamation of the noblest attributes of every artist we've ever admired. Those who exist beyond the realm of our own inadequacies, those never held back by silly things like uncertainty or fear, those who obstinately proceed without considering the damaging effects to their own stability or comfort, those with ideals, those beyond temptation, those whose life and art seem beautifully intertwined. Innocent, adaptive, inwardly driven. What will happen to this man here? How will he survive?But we can't admire him from afar as we have our other artistic lodestars. We are with him as he loses everything, his work, his girl, his space (in intervals), his freedom, his health, his sleep, his sustenance, his life. Would he really never flinch? Could he really still amuse himself? "Stet, back in his cell, finds there is nothing here to interfere with his work, he begins directing a film only he can see. In the dark he turns barbed wire into rivers." Could such an imperturbable man really exist?Or can it be that Chapman means to show us a parallel? That this man exists as much or as little as this place exists, and that though both exist to some degree, neither are as steadfast as we've made them in our minds.I love James Chapman's Stet. It is complex and beautiful. The painting on the cover depicts a man appearing to reach out his hand to hold the hand of an unreceptive executioner. I wonder if the man isn't Stet and the executioner not Stet's idealism which will consume his soul, lead to his ruin and give him nothing in return.